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Dealing with the Department of
Rehabilitation and US Social Security Administration
I, as well as many others have
had issues with states'
Departments of Rehabilitation and the US Social Security Administration related to disability support services, including the
requirement that a disabled person must be released from their permanent
disability by a physician, before the agency would even consider evaluating or
providing services to the person, or setting up evaluation processes that
require a person to miss therapy sessions to participate in their evaluation
over an extended period of time.
My focus here
is to publish the issues and see if we can find resolutions that overcome these
artifical barriers.
First, regarding the US Social
Security Administration local Chatsworth, CA office.
The associates I met there have been very helpful and supportive
in determining Social Security and Medicare status, with positive suggestions
about what to do and how to accomplish it. This includes at least three
personal visits and five telephone calls to the office. [It was so easy
that I was continually expecting a major …BUT! to interfere or delay. Nothing stopped the process, the
staff were courteous and helpful, everything happened on time, as explained.]
Next. my experience with the
California Department of Rehabilitation has
been one of extreme difficulty, starting with a denial of service
[for an initial discussion]! until I, as a permanently disabled
person, would be released from my permanent disability by my physician before
the agency would even consider evaluating or providing services to me, then
after an appeal and a one year delay, setting up an evaluation process that
requires me to miss ongoing Occupational Therapy sessions, over an extended
period of time [ten consecutive days, six hours per day] despite an alternative
schedule being available, or delaying until a time causing me to miss a
registration deadline for an educational program [after another full year of
delay].
More on the
Appeal Process as it unfolds [don’t hold your breadth, unless you
like the color blue!]
I filed an appeal, which resulted in an Arbitration hearing in which the DOR
Regional
Administrator agreed to support my
IPE [ Individual Plan for Employment (IPE)] – after a vocational and education evaluation. My IPE includes appropriate training.at CSUN
[M.S in Assistive Technologies Engineering and Human Services].
The key is to
read the regulations and get the support you need. Check into
Disability
Rights California - http://www.disabilityrightsca.org/
NOTE: upon completing the Arbitration Process, and the 10-day Vocational Analysis, my DOR counselor retired, and I will have a new counselor assigned. I did get a confirmation from DOR that they will be supporting my IPE without delays resulting from a new counselor assignment.
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